ABSTRACT
Joseph story is characterized by the interplay of the natural and the supernatural. However, God’s role in this story is left indeterminate – there is almost no explicit mention of god’s engineering any particular development in the plot. This chapter acknowledges the divine hand that guides the Joseph story and at the same time takes account of the human agency that propels the drama. It is at the resolution of the story that the tension between the blameworthiness of Joseph’s brothers for selling him into slavery and god’s involvement in the developments which led to their selling him is underscored. Not only is the descent into egypt inevitable, then, but the story suggests that god engineered the specific events which led to the selling of Joseph. The author reading of the Joseph story and his dismissal of Joseph’s view of the matter depend then on Frankfurt’s argument for the rejection of the principle of alternative possibilities.
